Archive for November, 2003

Just noticed the date was off on my last few posts. My boss’ boss’ home computer is set four days ahead for some reason. Weird. I think I fixed all my recent entries — sorry if it caused any inconvenience for anyone.

Started yesterday with a sore throat, culminated in a stuffed-up head last night, now completely miserable. Took Nyquil before bed, Dayquil when I woke up and just now again. Still feeling awful. Bleah.

But we had guests over last night, which was nice. Songwriting friends. They were very good and lively conversationalists, which seems increasingly rare.

Anyway, I guess I’ll spend the day watching movies or something, see if I can get over this bug, whatever it is, before tomorrow. No way out of work tomorrow, or for the next few weeks for that matter. 12/31 is looming menacingly on the horizon. I have some choice words for the genius who thought that would be a sensible day to launch an Alpha test of a product. Sheesh.

I’m posting from my boss’ boss’ house, where I’m housesitting and dogsitting, and she obviously has a “net nanny”-type filter set up on this computer. I’ve never used a computer that had that running before, at least not to my knowledge, but I know this one does because I can’t get to any of the links in the -related feeds. When I try to access biallmeans.org the word % - - - - - - - ” is invisible (had to put the hyphens in there so it doesn’t remove the word from my posting) as if it doesn’t even appear on the page. I tried to access - - - - -d-a-y.com and it redirected me to the National Wildlife Organization or whatever. (Interestingly, the filter leaves the word % ” but doesn’t like % - - - - “)

I’m so weirded out by this. I know it’s common, but I’ve never personally experienced it before.

Musing about discipline this morning. I’ve always thought of myself as lacking in discipline in many areas, yet this morning I realized I’ve become more disciplined about nearly every facet of my life. I’ve developed more discipline about how I manage my money, about how hard I work, about the kinds of food I eat, about the level of fitness I’m able to achieve, and so on. Some of those things were already somewhat in place, but the past few years of hardship seem to have cemented my discipline across the board — especially where work and money are concerned. So if those areas of discipline are in place mostly out of a fear-based reaction to hardship, well, is that what discipline is? Aren’t there people who are just born with an ability to work hard, delay gratification, put their heads down, and/or just do whatever it takes to get a thing done? How do they do it? And the rest of us who learn discipline as we grow, are we all reacting to some insight of what lack of discipline in any given area could bring? Is discipline for us generally linked with fear?

My coworker called after he left the office to tell me that one of the units in the duplex across the street from his house is going to be available for rent soon. For less than what we pay now. In a very cool part of town.

and I went to the place where the LiveJournal meetup was supposed to be tonight and didn’t see anyone. We stayed for a little while, then came home and packed to go housesit and dogsit at my boss’ boss’ house.

Got over there around 9:30 pm and discovered that she left the wrong key for us. We tried it in the front door and the back door; we looked at the garage to see if it fit there; we tried to think of everything. No dice.

So I called her cell phone and left a message — she’s probably still en route to Florida — and now we’re back home waiting to hear from her.

Poor dogs are probably crossing their legs, whining to be let outside.

And there’s the small matter that I’ve been up since 5 am and I’d really like to go to sleep. Anytime now. Please?

In the first one, I was just out of high school and dating this guy Todd, who was supposed to be still in high school, but who in reality was my next-door neighbor until my family moved when I was in high school, and although we did date eventually, it wasn’t until two summers after we graduated. And although he was a year behind me, in the dream he was the same age and grade as I was. Anyway, I stood there with him alone in this classroom as he installed a compact fluorescent light bulb above the teacher’s desk; it was meant to be a practical joke. When the teacher arrived, he was visibly upset, but he took the opportunity to make a learning experience out of it, and taught Todd how to install it at a better angle, or something. I don’t remember the details, but I remember being impressed.

And then in the second one, I still had this teacher theme going — in fact, it seems to have been just an extension of the first one. I was telling Michele, who was our real-life real estate agent in Portland and who incidentally is bisexual, but who in this dream apparently was a teacher, about the first dream. Can’t remember if I was aware it was a dream or not. Anyway, she proposed that she and I and her husband have sex together sometime. (Isn’t that what you do when someone tells you about a non-erotic dream of which you’re not a part?) I told her that it’s not within the agreed-upon boundaries of my relationship at present, but thanks for asking. And guess who her husband turned out to be? None other than the ubiquitous joedecker. My, but you do get around, Mr. Decker.

You have so many interests that you may have trouble deciding which ones to pursue.

You are a warm hearted person, with much love to give. You probably like children, and exhibit many playful characteristics. Sometimes you feel jealous, and must avoid becoming overly possessive in your relationships.

Sometimes you feel jealous, and must avoid becoming overly possessive in your relationships. [Ed. note: They even said it twice. Weird.]

There may be times in your life when you give in to feelings of sadness or depression. [Ed. note: This certainly isn’t true as a rule, but if it’s a prediction, I guess we’ll see.

You are likely to make decisions based on intuition or feelings rather than intellect.

Although you have ambition, you do not always exert the energy necessary to be successful.

You have a basically strong constitution, and should enjoy good health most of the time.

A major illness or setback is predicted near mid-life. You have the ability to recover from this.

There is a strong intuitive side to your nature, which may border on psychic or mystical ability.

My coworker K is having major remodeling done to his house. I’m trying to pay down my debts. We’re both contractors working on a project with unrealistic deadlines, and we have been given the freedom to bill as many hours as we need to in order to “get it done.”

We’re a little punchy from being overworked, but we’re also making frequent jokes about how he should put signs up throughout his house that say things like “this high-end showerhead brought to you by the Human Resources portion of the intranet content migration.”

Just got back from meeting with the department that is publishing their content during the pre-Alpha ramp-up period, i.e., now. It was terrifying starting out because all they wanted to tell me was how painful a process it had been for them so far and why none of my tools I’d designed to help them were working.

I walked them through what they could do differently, showed them the publishing and site administration features of the new portal, and I dare say by the time I walked out of there, they were looking forward to getting back to their content migration.

Skipped my run again this morning. (I didn’t run yesterday morning either.) Yesterday, I skipped because my knees felt like they could use a break. This morning, I skipped because my back is really hurting. I think part of it is due to my period, but I’m aware that I may be overtraining.

I’ve read and heard over and over that runners injure themselves when they freak about skipping a day, worried that they’ll lose fitness. And I definitely know what that feels like: I’m definitely fighting back the sensation that I’ll lose ground in my training by skipping a few days. But I also know that they say you don’t lose any fitness for a week or two, and if you’re injured, you need to rest. So I’m trying to be smart about it.

But I better be able to get out there tomorrow. I always look forward to my Friday morning run.

Weigh In Daily
Step out of bed every morning and onto the scale. If you’re anywhere from 1% to 3% lighter than yesterday, re-hydrate by drinking 8 ounces of fluid for each pound lost before training again. Between 3% and 6% lighter, re-hydrate and back off that day’s training intensity. Over 7%, get to the doctor.

So that day when I was 5 pounds lighter than the day before (which is about a 3.5% loss for my weight), it probably was just water weight loss from dehydration. I’m sure I was drinking a lot of water the day before, but it must not have been enough. Good to know for future reference.

I’m working late, and my boss gave me permission to order some food and expense it. So I got some Chinese delivery and invited Karsten to bring his portable keyboard and stuff and come have some food too, as he sometimes does when I stay late at the office.

So anyway, I just ate two platefuls of greasy, delicious broccoli with spicy garlic sauce, and I mean it really was good, but I feel gross! I can’t remember the last time I ate that much grease in one sitting. Yeesh.

I’m supposed to be working on a proposal that will go before the Governance committee to get them to determine what the access cutoff date on the legacy system will be once we replace it with the new system. The basis of the proposal is how overallocated the portal team is — specifically the business analysts (of which I am one) — and how we simply won’t be able to accomplish the insane arbitrary deadline that’s been set (March 26, 2004).

It should be motivating, because I’m writing something that could save me a lot of frustration. But for some reason, it’s just demoralizing. I feel put upon having to spend time writing up detailed analysis of something anyone with half a brain could understand if I explained it for five minutes.

And the whole point of the proposal is that I have too much to do. So I find it absurd, in that inimitable corporate way, to spend so much time on something that has nothing to do with building the new system. Just sayin’.

Also part of my morning run path is the lake in Centennial Park. You can see building 2 of the HCA campus in the background. I work in building 1, which would be in the picture’s right side, but is hidden by trees. You can also see the running path all the way on the right of the picture alongside the lake. I love it!

I billed 66.75 hours last week, and it looks like this week will be in excess of 60 hours as well. That’ll make a nice, plump overtime paycheck next month.

And the sale of kathleen.net went through this morning, so that’s some extra dough in my checking account. Actually, it’ll go right toward paying off the heaviest credit card.

Which, speaking of, I now believe will easily be paid off by the end of March ‘04.

And there’s little things, too, like a $25 credit on the phone bill just for renewing our contract. And $80 to housesit and dog-sit for my boss’ boss over Thanksgiving.

It’s all adding up, and I’m really starting to see the light at the end of this tunnel. I feel like I’m starting to be able to breathe more deeply. Is it possible I’ve been living with low-level anxiety for the past few years and have just gotten used to it? That’s what it feels like. Because even though things are still pretty rough in some ways (work is hard and I’m worried about my dad, for example), the money issue has been pretty overwhelming for a long time. And it’s really starting to look a whole lot better.

We’ve got to stick with the extremely frugal lifestyle, of course, and that’s not always easy, but knowing that we’re getting somewhere because of it certainly helps.

Why am I craving chocolate so much? I mean, it’s crazy! I just finished eating a bowl of the sweet potato soup I made yesterday, and right away I’m jonesing hard for chocolate. I might just have a good enough excuse to walk over to the drug store on the other side of the park and buy some, because I’m thinking I’d like to get some ice packs to keep in the freezer here anyway. (My knees often feel like they could use ice when I finish my run in the morning.) There’s a snack shop here in my building, too, but at least if I walk to the other side of the park I can feel like I’ve sorta balanced out the calories.
Of course, I’m wearing teeter-y high heel boots, so perhaps walking across the park when my knees are already feeling stressed would be ill-advised.

We watched “Without Limits” about Steve Prefontaine last night, and I found it very moving. It was not a particularly well-made movie — the flaws in direction alone were enough to be distracting — but his story is so compelling that it towers over inferior filmmaking.

And one thing that struck me was just how far the sport of running has come in the past few decades. And yet how much it’s the same as it ever was. Technology is interesting that way.